The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dual Alliance, by Marjorie Benton Cooke This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Dual Alliance Author: Marjorie Benton Cooke Illustrator: Mary Greene Blumenschein Release Date: July 20, 2010 [EBook #33209] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUAL ALLIANCE *** Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. The dual alliance Marjorie Benton Cooke The Dual Alliance BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR Bambi David The Girl Who Lived in the Woods "But I—I hardly know you" "But I—I hardly know you" THE DUAL ALLIANCE BY MARJORIE BENTON COOKE ILLUSTRATED BY MARY GREENE BLUMENSCHEIN GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1915 Copyright, 1915, International Magazine Co. Copyright, 1915, by Doubleday, Page & Co. CONTENTS PROLOGUE PART I PART II PART III ILLUSTRATIONS "But I—I hardly know you" "He tended the fire that was between them" "Every night at midnight Paul called her on the 'phone" "Bob and Paul stood bowing and smiling" PROLOGUE Barbara Garratry was thirty and Irish. To the casual observer the world was a bright coloured ball for her tossing. When she was a tiny mite her father had dubbed her "Bob, Son of Battle," because of certain obvious, warlike traits of character, and "Bob" Garratry she had been ever since. She had literally fought her way to the top, handicapped by poverty, very little education, the responsibility of an invalid and dependent father. She had been forced to make all her own opportunities, but at thirty she was riding the shoulders of the witch success. Her mother, having endowed her only child with the gift of a happy heart, went on her singing way into Paradise when Bob was three. Her father, handsome ne'er-do-well that he was, made a poor and intermittent living for them until the girl was fifteen. Then poor health overtook him, and Bob took the helm. At fifteen she worked on a newspaper, and discovered she had a picturesque talent for words. Literary ambition gripped her, a desire to make permanent use of the dramatic elements which she uncovered in her rounds of assignments. She had a nose for news and made a fair success, until she took to sitting up at night to write "real stuff" as she called it. Her nervous, high-strung temperament would not stand the strain, so, true to her Irish blood, she gave up the newspaper job, with its Saturday night pay envelope, and threw herself headlong into the uncharted sea of authorship. She began with short stories for magazines. Editors admitted her, responded to her personality—returned her tales. "If you could write the way you talk," they all said. Now Daddy Garratry had to eat, no matter how light she could go on rations, so she abandoned literature shortly for a position in a decorator's shop. Here, too, she found charm an asset. She worked eight hours a day, cooked for two of them, washed, sewed, took care of her invalid, lavished herself upon him, then wrote at night, undaunted by her first failure. She used her brain on the problem of success. When the manager of the shop put her in charge of their booth at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition, because, as he said, "you can attract people," she recalled the consensus of editorial opinion, and made up her mind that personality was her real gift. The stage was the show window for that possession, so thither she turned her face at eighteen, and in due course of time joined the great army which follows the mirage of stage success. But Bob proved to be one of the god's anointed, and from the first the charm of her, her queer, haunting face, which [Pg 3] [Pg 4] [Pg 5] [Pg 6] [Pg 7] some found ugly and some proclaimed beautiful, marked her for advance. She was radiantly happy in the work, and happier still that she was able to provide more comforts and luxuries for daddy, who was her idol. The real crux of her ambition was the day when she could give him everything his luxury-loving heart desired. She worked hard, she learned the trade of the theatre. She studied her audiences, noted their likes and dislikes, what they laughed at, and when they wept. Then once again she took up her abandoned pen and began to work on a play. She and daddy talked it, played it, mulled it over every waking hour for months. Then one historic day Bob read it to an audience of daddy and a manager—that was the beginning of the last lap of the race. The manager accepted it and left father and daughter in a state of ecstasy. "Well, dad, it looks like the real thing this time." "It does, Bobsie. Ye're not only the prettiest Garratry, but ye're the smartest of the clan!" "Blarney!" "I wish yer mither could see ye the day. Ye were such a queer mite, but smart—ye were always smart——" "What'll I buy ye with our fortune, daddy? A farm in the ould counthry and little pigs——" "No pigs for me! I'd like me a body servant in brass buttons to wait on me noight an' day. Whin I come down our marble stairs, I want to see him sthandin' there, attintion, so I can say, 'Jimmy—there's yer valley.'" "You funny old dad! What else? We'll get us a motor car——" "Shure, an' a counthry place—but no pigs——" "How about a yacht?" "We'll sthay on land, mavourneen, 'tis safer." "But we must go to Europe, cabin de luxe——" "I don't care if it's de luxe, if it's D-comfortable," he laughed. This was the beginning of a wonderful game of make-believe, which they played for months. Bob's comedy went into rehearsal at once, and every day when she came home, after hours spent in the theatre, she found daddy laughing over some new scheme he had devised for spending their fortune, when it came. They planned like magii with the magic carpet in their hands, ready to spread before them. They worked out tours of Europe, they built and rebuilt their country house. They endowed charities for newspaper writers and interior decorators—they planned a retreat for indigent magazine writers and an asylum for editors. Life was a joyous thing, stretching out ahead of them, full of colour and success, and then, on the very eve of the production of Bob's play, daddy died. Bob went through it all, the first night and what came after, like a wraith. The adulation and the praise that came to her were ashes instead of fire. Six years followed of success. Money, travel, friends, the love and admiration of great audiences came to her, but Bob found life stale. Lovers came a-plenty; she made them friends and kept them, or sent them on their way. Bob had everything the world's wife wants, and in her own heart she knew she had nothing. Generosity was her vice. Anybody in her profession, or out of it, who was in trouble, had only to go to Bob Garratry for comfort or for cash. There was usually a tired, discouraged girl recuperating out at Bob's bungalow, and in the summertime all the stage children she could find came to pay her visits and live on real milk and eggs. She interested herself in the girl student colonies in New York, and became their patron saint. She found that the girls in the Three Arts Club, and kindred student places—getting their musical and dramatic education with great sacrifice usually, either to their parents or themselves—had only such opportunities to hear the great artists of the day as the top galleries afforded. The dramatic students fared better than the others, she found, for they could get seats for twenty-five or fifty cents in the lofts of theatres, but the music students had to stand in line sometimes for two or three hours to buy a place in the gallery of the Metropolitan. As it was impossible to see anything from there, seated, they were accustomed to stand through the entire opera. For this privilege they paid one dollar. Bob learned what that dollar meant to most of them, an actual sacrifice, even privation. While rich patrons yawned below, these young idealists, the musical and dramatic hope of our future, leaned over the railing, up under the roof, trying to grasp the fine shades of expression which mark the finished artist. All this Bob Garratry learned, and raged at. She herself donated twenty-five student seats for every opera, and a lesser number for each good play. She interested some of her friends in the idea—with characteristic fervour she adopted all the students in New York, but even this large family did not fill the nooks and crannies of her empty heart. You felt it in her work—"the Celtic minor" as one critic said. Possibly Paul Trent expressed it best when he said: "Behind her every laugh you feel her dreein' her weird!" [Pg 8] [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] [Pg 13] [Pg 14] [Pg 15] PART I "Mr. Trent, Miss Garratry is on the wire," said the stenographer to Trent, who sat at his desk making inroads on the piles of correspondence, official documents, and typewritten evidence which heaped his desk. "I told you I couldn't be interrupted," he replied sharply. "I explained that to her, when she called the first time. She says that if you don't speak to her she will come down here." He smiled reluctantly as he took up the receiver. "Good morning," he said. "What is the use of having a lawyer, if he acts like a Broadway manager?" she asked. "I wish you could see the pile of papers completely surrounding me," he answered. "I'm not interested in your troubles, I want mine attended to." "Entirely feminine." "Yes, it is selfish——" "I said feminine." "I heard you. I want you to lunch with me at two." "I cannot possibly do it," he interrupted her. "It isn't social, it is business, and it must be attended to to-day." "I'm sorry, but——" "Mr. Trent, I assure you it is a matter of serious importance. I feel justified in insisting upon your professional attention for one hour to-day. If you prefer, I will come to you." Trent's face showed his annoyance. "I cannot take time for lunch. I'll be there at three." "Thank you." He hung up the receiver impatiently and returned to his work. A few minutes before three he set out for the hotel where Barbara Garratry lived. He was annoyed at himself for coming—probably some foolishness which could just as well be attended to over the telephone. He knew the actress only slightly. He had acted as her attorney in one or two minor cases when she needed legal help. He had found her sensible and intelligent—for a woman. Susceptible to beauty, he had felt her charm, and even promised himself that some day he would take time to know her. She interested him, because all successful people interested him. It was his only measure. At forty he found himself envied by men, his seniors in his profession. He had served as State's attorney, he was on the eve of trying for a bigger prize, but to-day, as he made his way along the crowded street, in answer to Barbara Garratry's summons, his mood was a bit cynical. Life held no locked doors for him—he had peered behind them all, as Father Confessor. Men he found open books, women, thin volumes not worth the reading. To-day he had a sense of isolation from his fellows, a wave of loneliness, almost futility. This "average man," who passed him on the street, had his home, his wife, and children to match with Trent's "bigger issues." He was invited to Miss Garratry's sitting-room at once. Her maid admitted him, and she came to greet him. He was struck again with a certain poignant quality in her, although her smile was merry. "I know how furious you are at having to come." "On the contrary, I am honoured." "You are unremittingly courteous, considering that you are you." "Which means?" "I know in what poor esteem you hold women," she smiled. "You do me a great injustice," he began. "You do yourself one," she interrupted. "We're not so bad. However, the fact that we interest you so little makes it possible for you to do me a service." "I am glad." She waved him to a seat, and as she crossed the room he found himself wondering whether her floating gown was blue or violet or both. The primroses at her belt gave him pleasure. She gathered up some papers and laid them before him. [Pg 16] [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] "I wish to make my will. This is a list of my possessions and the distribution I wish made of them." He looked over the list, his eye appraising with surprise her investments. "You have been very successful." "Yes." "You wish me to have this typed, signed, witnessed, and filed with your other papers?" "If you please. I wish my body cremated and the ashes thrown into the sea," she added quietly. He glanced at her quickly. "You are ill? You are afraid of death?" "Afraid of death? No, I am seeking it." "What do you mean?" "I mean I do not wish to live any more— I'm tired." He looked about him at the charming, flower-scented room, at the vibrant figure of the girl. "You mean you intend to end it—deliberately?" "Yes. Why not? There is not a living soul dependent on me to be affected by my going." "You don't think it's cowardice?" "I'm brave enough to be a coward. I've fought my way through and over every obstacle—even you say I've been successful. Now I'm tired— I've got nothing to fight for, I'm Irish, and I'm lonesome." "But you're just at the top, ready to enjoy what you've fought for." "There's nothing in that. It's only the fight that counts." He understood that. "Why don't you marry, or have you?" "No, I have not. I don't want money or position. I can't marry a man who loves me when I'm only fond of him. I'd rather marry a stranger." "What made you begin the fight?" "I wanted things for daddy, and he died just before I won out." "Why don't you interest yourself in some cause? Women nowadays are——" "Suffrage or charity? The Irish are never satisfied with causes, man——" "There's Home Rule," he smiled. "The women have it," she retorted. "But it's ridiculous! Why, you've got everything in the world." "Do you think that?" she challenged him directly. He walked over to the window and looked out at the early winter sunset. Presently he came back and faced her. "No," he answered. She nodded. "I've thought it all out. I think I have the right. I'm at the top of my wave now, I don't want to sink slowly down into the trough of old age and mediocrity. I'm going." "When?" She laughed. "Oh, the day of execution isn't set. I want to get my house in order." "How are you going?" "I don't know. They're all rather ugly. I wanted you to have directions. I want you sent for." "Why did you select me?" curiously. [Pg 21] [Pg 22] [Pg 23] [Pg 24] "Because I thought you would understand." He walked up and down the room, his tall head bent, his eyes on the floor. She watched him absently, her mind far away. He roused her by stopping before her. "I do understand. I offer no opposition. You're of age, you know what you want. I make you a counter proposition. We will call a taxi, go to the courthouse, get a license and be married. We will spend six months together, as partners only. We each go on with our own work, but we share our problems and our pleasures. At the end of the six months, if you still want to go, I'll help you." She stared at him, utterly aghast. "But I—I hardly know you!" "You said you'd rather marry a stranger than a man you were merely fond of—so would I. I've felt this loneliness you speak of. I'd like to make this experiment. We are neither of us handicapped by sentiment—we start even." "But you don't like me—much." "Enough. As well as you like me. You're a good gambler. Get your hat and come along." "Six months! What difference will it make in a thousand years?" she questioned. "None." She stood on tiptoe, her two hands on his shoulders, and looked long into his eyes. He looked into hers frankly. In the end she nodded, went into the other room, came back at once, in hat and furs. "It's a new kind of suicide," she smiled, "come on." II In the cab a sort of terror of this madness came upon Bob. She glanced at this strange man beside her as if she had never seen him before. His handsome, aquiline profile was toward her as he gazed at the crowds passing. What was in his mind? Was he, too, longing to run? "It's getting colder. People are scurrying," he said casually. She steadied at his calm tone. A new courage, a new sense of adventure began to stir in her. They said very little on the drive; in fact, except for necessary questions they were almost entirely silent until they walked out of the courthouse, man and wife. Trent put her into the cab, gave an order, and got in after her. She looked at him intently: so much depended on these first few minutes. "Well, partner," he smiled, and took her gloved hand in a firm clasp for a minute. Her sigh of relief made him smile again, and then they both laughed. "I told him to go to my apartment. We'll make some tea and I'll pack a bag. I'd better join you at the hotel." "Your apartment is too——" "You couldn't be comfortable there with your maid." They disembarked at his quarters, and Bob made a tour of inspection. She hoped for an intimate glance into the man's personality, but the rooms were as impersonal as he was. Just books and pipes and man-litter. She made the tea while he packed his things. "Aren't you sorry to leave this?" she asked him. "Well, you can't have your cake and eat it. Every experiment has some disadvantages," he laughed. "When my season closes I'll keep house for you. I'm good at it." "Thank the Lord for that!" "No, I won't drag you over the 'well-known continent of Europe' for three months," she laughed, and he nodded gratefully. "I have a little place up in the hills where I go in the summer." "So have I." "Well, how will we manage it?" "Fifty-fifty," said he. "Half at yours and half at mine." They drank their tea and put away the things. When they were ready to go, Bob said, "I like this man-place." [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] [Pg 28] [Pg 29] [Pg 30] "We'll come here when you're tired of your girly-girly garden." They went to the hotel and announced their marriage to the manager and the clerk. Trent looked at a suite adjoining Barbara's. "It's all right. I'll send my things up to-morrow. Now you go and rest. What am I to call you?" "Everybody calls me Bob." "Then I'll say Barbara. Do you want to dine upstairs or in the restaurant?" "Restaurant," quickly. His swift glance brought explanation. "You embarrass me a little—yet. I have to get used to you, and the restaurant seems less—intimate." He nodded, smiling. "When do you go to the theatre?" "Seven o'clock. Are you coming?" "Certainly." "Dinner at six-fifteen. You'll hate that, won't you?" "There may be compensations," dryly. He held the door open for her, between the two suites. "Oh, bother that boy, he carried off the key to this door," he added. "We don't need it," she said. "Thank you," he bowed. Dinner was hurried and unsatisfactory. For the most part they were silent. Bob needed her reserves for the night's work, and deliberately set herself against the impulse to entertain him. He talked to her, as they drove to the theatre, so quietly and casually, that she knew she had dreamed it all—that he would go out of her life at the stage door. "Coming around later?" she asked. "Yes." She nodded and disappeared. When half an hour later she darted out on the stage before an enraptured audience, he found himself a part of the mob spirit which acclaimed her. Her charm was irresistible. He felt her as an artist, not as a woman, but she moved him keenly by her masterly performance. As the audience filed out he went into a nearby florist and bought the entire stock of Killarney roses. He carried them to her dressing-room, and when the maid admitted him, he dropped the mass in her lap. "For a wild Irish rose," said he. "Faith, little sisters, he's an Irishman himself," she laughed, burying her face in the bloom. They were interrupted by the manager, people to see her on various pretexts. Trent was driven into the ugly corridor. He was for the first time somewhat irritated by the situation. Appendage to a star! Had he for once in his carefully planned life completely lost his head, and risked everything on a wild gamble? When she came toward him, ready for the street, he pulled himself together. "Where shall we go? Do you mind the cafés?" "People stare so, I seldom go. But it is all right to-night, if you do not mind that." "Let's go to the Persian Garden and dance." "All right." Trent had never been in any public place with her, and he was totally unprepared for the effect she produced. As they followed the head waiter to a table, a noticeable whisper ran round the room, then silence. Then a youth, who had courage as well as champagne aboard, rose and lifted his glass. "On your feet, all of you! To Bob, God bless her!" With laughter everybody responded. Trent, slightly amused, secretly annoyed, watched Bob's expression. First astonishment, then concern for him, then genuine pleasure. They were not yet seated, so she lifted an imaginary glass to them. "Thank you, friends. Here's to a short life and a merry one for us all!" [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] Applause greeted her, and as they took their seats she turned to Trent impulsively. "I'm so sorry," she said; "you hate it, of course, but don't. It's only because they really love me." "Suppose we don't try to explain things to each other, my lady." The music began, and he rose and held out his hand to her. She had not danced with him before, so when he swung her away with the ease of a master, she had a sense of surprised pleasure before she gave herself up to the joy of it. "I'd never have thought it of you, Paul," she said, as they took their seats. He laughed and lifted his glass. "To the partnership!" They drank to it gravely. Later when Paul unlocked her door for her, and turned to go on to his, she said: "Come in and talk over the party." "Aren't you tired?" "No. I feel as if I'd never sleep. I wish I were going on this minute, to play a new part before a Boston audience, on a rainy first night." "That would call forth all your powers," he laughed, and followed her in. As she pulled the cord of the last lamp, she felt his eyes on her. "Well, what do you think of me?" she challenged him. "I think you are an inspired artist and a beautiful woman," he evaded. She laughed at that. "That must be an old joke," he objected. "The whole thing is exquisitely funny: a strange man in my rooms at two in the morning compliments me on my art.... What do you want of life?" she added disconcertingly. His tongue shaped itself in an evasive reply, but the frank, boyish interest in her face changed his mind. "I want several things: One of them is to be governor of New York." "Good! I like people to know what they want and go after it." "It isn't so easy, you know." "All the better." "Do you know anything about politics?" "Lord, man, I'm Irish." She led him on to talk of the situation in the political game, to line up for her his allies and enemies; to outline his campaign policy. His candidacy was to be announced in a few days. She leapt at the points in advance of him, questioned this and that—he talked to her as to a lieutenant. The clock chimed and caught his attention. "Good heavens! why didn't you send me home?" "What's the use of sleeping when there's something to talk about—when there's a fight to plan for." "But my work must not interfere with your work." He came to shake hands with her. "It looks as if this partnership might prove a success." "I'm no prophet!" she defied him. Just before he closed the door he spoke: "But the election would not be until next fall——" "We could extend our contract," she retorted, and the door closed on his laugh. PART II It seems sometimes as if a Harlequin rules the world. When once your tired eyes rest on what you know to be the last trick in his bag—lo! he turns the empty sack upside down, and it spills surprises, like the widow's cruse. Some such master jest he played on Barbara. [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] An absorbing interest had catapulted into her life, and wakened her like a bugle call. She had a fight on her hands and that means life to the Irish. Her extraordinary marriage made little real difference in the order of her days, except that she dined with an interesting man each night. He talked to her of the things he hoped to do, if the people of New York made him governor. Always, except when political dinners or party caucus kept him too late, she found him pacing the corridor outside her dressing-room. Courteous, urbane, he took her to supper with friends, to a café, or back to the hotel, where they had something to eat in Bob's sitting-room. This last arrangement suited her best, for then she could lead him to talk of the fight ahead. He sometimes asked her judgment. She felt his single-purposed strength in these talks; she plumbed the force which had made him a success at forty. "Why do you always make me talk about myself?" he asked her on one of these occasions of supper in her room. "I want you to be interested," she retorted. "You think me such an egotist?" "I think all successful people are egotists. Success isn't an accident, it is plan and work. You have to focus in on yourself all the time to belong to the master-class." "You don't talk about yourself—you're a success." "Oh, we'll come to me. It's all 'quiet along the Potomac' with me just now, but you're going into action." "Think of the egotists who are not a success." "Well, of course, a man who is merely in love with himself is in danger of a mésalliance," she added, laughing. "Go on! What is the saving grace for your egotists?" "I hate to be so bromidic." "I'm used to it." "Oh!" "Not in you—the rest of the world." "New York nearly lost a governor!" she warned him. "I save my egotist with a sense of humour, which is only a sense of proportion. Humour plus purpose." "What kind of purpose?" "To be selfish for unselfish ends." "Delightfully Irish," he admitted. The talk never drifted from the impersonal. They both unconsciously fought to keep up all the barriers of their formal relationship, but they both were constantly peering over the wall into the other's personality, hoping not to be caught at it. The day came when Trent's candidacy for governor was announced by his party. As he never saw Bob in the morning, the news came to her with her coffee and toast. She sent for all the papers and read them more diligently than she had ever searched for notices of her own triumphs. The bed looked like a sea of print, out of which she rose, a pink mermaid. When the last word was read, she took up the 'phone beside her bed and called Paul. The secretary told her he was in a conference. She asked if there was a message. "This is— I am—Mrs. Trent," said Barbara, blushing furiously at her end of the line. "Oh, just a minute," amended the girl. After a bit she heard his crisp, short greeting. "Good-morning! This is Bob." "How are you?" "I've read every line in every paper. I'm so excited I had to call up. Could I do something—make a speech, or something like that?" "Wish you might— I'd be nominated sure." She resented his flippancy, she was so in earnest. "I won't keep you; I know you're busy, Governor." "I'll take that as a prophecy. By the way, I may not be able to dine with you to-night." "Sorry! Good-bye." [Pg 41] [Pg 42] [Pg 43] [Pg 44] [Pg 45] He frowned at her abrupt dismissal as he went back to work, then he forgot all about her. Bob set down the steel bar smartly. For some reason she was irritated at the interview. She had expressed herself with such emotion, and he had received it with such cool matter of factness. She treated herself to a mental shaking, which Englished might have read thus: "Look here, Barbara Garratry, this man is nothing to you but an interesting interlude between Now and the Hereafter. He asked you to marry him as an experiment. He laid stress on a lack of sentiment. Now don't you let your Irish feelings clutter things up. You fight for the fight's sake and leave the man out of it." She arose with much determination. She dressed and outlined a play to be called "The Governor." She read the noon editions. She put in a busy afternoon, disciplining her mind to keep away from the danger-zone, and as punishment she went to dine with some friends, so that she might miss the chance of seeing him, if he did come back to dine. Paul, in the meantime, worked like five men all day, with the unformed idea in the back of his brain that there was something he must do at seven o'clock. He was to speak at the Waldorf at eight, after a political dinner. The last conference was over a few minutes before seven. The unformed thought crystalized—he wanted to talk to Bob. It would rest him more than anything. He called a taxi and hurried to the hotel. He glowed with satisfaction at the thought of her, there, waiting for him. He laughed at himself and dashed to her door like an eager boy. The maid told him she had gone out to dine, and his disappointment was all out of proportion to the facts, as he told himself on his way to his room. Why shouldn't she go out to dinner? Just because this night was an important one to him was no reason why it should be to her. He was a man she had married for an experiment. He must not let her woman-lure get between him and his purpose. It was an older, grim-faced candidate for governor who went to the Waldorf an hour later. Bob's performance dragged that night. She had exhausted herself in forced gaiety at the dinner and she was furious at herself. When her maid reported Paul's appearance at her door, she denied to herself the wave of regret that swept over her. A party of friends came back after the play to carry her off for supper, but she pleaded a headache and got rid of them. She said to herself over and over as she dressed for the street, "I know he won't come to-night—he's too busy to remember." But when she stepped into the hall and looked for his tall figure, she felt a swift disappointment. She sent her maid on to the hotel alone, on some excuse, and she determined to walk herself. It was a cold, crisp night. Broadway was a blare of light, as poignant as a din of sound. Taxis honked, policemen shouted; bareheaded women and tall-hatted men hurried to the restaurants, the maelstrom of Broadway, nearing midnight, was in full tide. Bob turned from it toward the shadowy stretch of the avenue. The moon was clear and round, the heavens a blue plush vault. The broad shining street swept its gleaming length, with the misty lights reflecting themselves. Uptown the cathedral spires pricked the skyline, downtown was lost in grayness. Bob hesitated at the corner to buy an extra from a brass-lunged newsy, then stood an instant deciding which way to go. She wanted the solitude and calm of the night. A click of approaching footsteps caught her attention. She looked at the man who approached, head up, hands deep in his overcoat pockets, his long stride even and swift. Something about her caught his eye and he stopped before her in alarm. "Barbara!" "Why, it's you," she said stupidly. "What's happened? What are you doing here alone, at this hour?" "Trying to decide whether to walk uptown or downtown," she laughed. He drew her hand through his arm, and fell into step, facing uptown. "But, my dear girl, I can't have you alone on the streets like this." "Why don't you come after me then?" "I was on my way—I was detained," he answered seriously. "I was joking. I've always gone about alone since I was a child. I'm perfectly safe." "I don't like it, just the same. Where's your maid?" "Sent her home." "You wanted to be alone?" "Yes." He slowed down. [Pg 46] [Pg 47] [Pg 48] [Pg 49] [Pg 50] [Pg 51] [Pg 52] "I don't mind you." "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," he remarked. "Do you want me to say nice things to you?" "I haven't any objection to it," he smiled. "Tell me about your day." "I came to tell you about it, before the banquet, and you'd flown." "You said you wouldn't be back. I've read all the extras up to this." She displayed the paper, and he smiled and put it in his pocket. He related the day's events; he even repeated the main points he had made in his speech, led on by her interest. "They're a bit afraid of me, even my friends. They think I've got the reform bug, that I'll go in for a lot of things that they think unessential." "Well, won't you?" "Yes, but it's good politics to keep that to yourself." "Don't you do it! Throw down all your cards and win out on what's in your hand." "That's your advice, is it? It might lose me the office." "I don't believe it. It takes nerve to state your intentions and invite the party to stay in or go out. The public cares more for nerve than party, I think." They walked and talked until the black mass of the Park blocked the way. Paul told her of the reform bills he wanted to get put through, bills that would cost him dear, because there were big vested interests in opposition. Bob listened, commented, urged him to fight on principle, not politics. They were so absorbed in themselves that the midnight crowds scattered and left the world to them. The walk downtown was over before they realized it. The cold night air, the exercise, or something had cleared the world of all difficulties for both of them. "I'm glad I met you," she nodded to him, as she laid her hand in his for good-night. "It was a fine walk; but no more gallivanting alone at night—without me," he warned her. "I make no promises and take no orders. I'm a free-lance and an anarchist. I'm agin the government." "Not agin the Governor, I hope?" "No such animal is dreamt of in my philosophy!" quoth she. II The months that followed that midnight walk were difficult ones. Trent had his law business to attend to, and endless demands were made upon his time and strength by political banquets and speechmaking. Bob felt as if she were primitive woman, tending the pot in the tent, waiting for her brave to rush in with news of war. Then she laughed at her own thoughts. A modern New York hotel was a poor substitute for a tent. She was not even of use as pot-tender, the chêf had succeeded to that profession. Paul fell into the habit of coming for short breathing spells between appointments. He reported every move to her and they talked each one over. Her counsel was often sure and wise. Barbara felt that he respected her intuitions, if not her judgment. "May I come in?" he asked one day at her door. "I have half an hour before I'm due in court, and I thought you might let me have a bite of lunch here with you, in peace and quiet." She crossed to the telephone and ordered the luncheon sent up at once. "You look very tired, Paul. Lie down there and be quiet until the lunch comes." He went to her couch and obeyed. His eyes closed. "Talk to me." She blushed for some reason, and went to throw a rug across his feet. He looked up at her smiling. "How shall I ever catch up with you, Barbara Garratry?" "Catch up?" [Pg 53] [Pg 54] [Pg 55] [Pg 56] [Pg 57] "I make unconscionable demands on your time and patience. I ask myself what possible right I have to do it, assure myself I have none, and go right on imposing on you." "I'm glad to help—if I do. I told you I liked a fight." "Just at this moment peace seems the only good gift desirable to me." "Don't talk—rest." "Your voice rests me." "All right. Be quiet and I'll talk. I'll tell you the story of a play I'm going to do. It's called The Governor." He opened his eyes at that. "Yes, you suggested it to me, but you're not the hero." "Let's hear," he said. She outlined the situation and set the characters up before him. Her hero was to be a young ardent reform candidate for governor, visioning big things which he could do with his power of office. The party leaders let him talk—they winked and said the reform stuff was popular with the people just now, but when they got him to Albany they'd teach him a new song. The chief contributor to his campaign fund was to be a corporation which wanted the governor's veto to a bill infringing their absolutism. They convinced the young enthusiast of their absolute sympathy with his aims, as well as their own integrity of purpose, and then he is elected and goes to Albany. She was interrupted by the waiter with the lunch. She directed him to serve them. "Never mind the lunch—go on with 'The Governor'!" commanded Trent. "That's enough for this session. Come and eat your brief repast—time is nearly up." "But what are you going to have him do when he finds out the corporation is rotten?" While he ate his lunch he plied her with questions and objections. When he had finished, he hesitated at the door. "Let's talk about the play to-night. I'll come after you. For this relief much thanks; it was both mental and physical." This play, introduced as a soporific by Bob, proved a real bond. Trent became deeply interested in it, talked it, thought about it, contended fiercely over points. When Bob remarked that it was, after all, her play, and she would do with it as she saw fit, he always defended himself gravely. He debated the necessity of the love story. It took time which might be used for preachment. "Oh, you mere man," she exploded, "you can't go on disregarding women in this way. We're here, we've got to be admitted and considered." "Well, but——" "The governor's love affair will be of much more interest to an audience than the reform bills he puts through." "Stupid cattle!" "Of more interest to the governor, too," she added. "Heretic! You don't believe that." "Certainly I do." "You think that his courting a woman and having a few children is as important as what he can do for the whole State of New York?" She hesitated a moment, chin in hand. "I think that in so far as a man is normal he understands the needs of the people. It's normal for a man to marry and have a family. My governor will be a bigger man, if he wins this girl in the play." "But all that interrupts him, takes his mind off his bigger usefulness." "The bigger the man, the bigger his usefulness. Don't you see, you've got to feed all a man's needs, or a woman's, to get the highest results?" "Do you think everybody needs this, this food, as you call it?" "Do I think every baby needs mother's milk?" she inquired. "They don't all get it, and they live just the same." [Pg 58] [Pg 59] [Pg 60] [Pg 61] [Pg 62] "Yes, but you can never say how much stronger they would have been with it," she smiled. "Irish sophistry," he remarked, but he found that talk recurring to him. She had phrased his own suspicion. "I take your advice about my campaign," he said. "So do I take yours about the play." "But you fight every step of the way." "That's the way the Irish show they're grateful," she laughed. But in her heart she was glad that at last her work began to interest him as much as his interested her. Of course this particular problem in the play was his own problem, so his interest was easily aroused. She saw how it rested him to forget entirely about his own work and take up this other man's difficulties. As the hot weather came upon them they debated the wisdom of moving out of town. Bob's season was running very late, holding on from week to week, so long as the audiences held. Trent was rushed to death. They met only for brief visits at odd hours. Even week-ends were occupied; he caught up with his correspondence on that holiday. "You look very pale these last few days, Barbara. Do go off to your bungalow, or to mine." "Will you come, too?" "Whenever I can. You see how my time is eaten up. But you could motor out at night, and spend your days out in the open. Don't think of me, you go—and be comfortable." "Do I get on your nerves?" He hesitated a moment. "I wonder sometimes what my nerves would have done without you. You are the only tonic they have." "Thanks. I'll stay until my season closes, then we can decide." He breathed a sigh which she flattered herself was relief. Two weeks later the theatre closed. The days were hot and dry. Bob was tired, and determined not to be worried about Trent, who was working to the limit of his endurance. When he came into her room the Sunday morning after her closing, she was shocked by him. "Well, Saint Francis, you look as if you had fasted forty days and forty nights." "I feel it—I'm all in." "I am going to leave you to-morrow." "What?" "I hate to think of you dying alone—better come along." "Where?" "I don't know. I'd like to go to some perfectly new place." "So would I. Is there such a thing?" "I'd like to rough it. Camp, skies for roof, all that kind of differentness." "Where could we go?" "I knew some people who went to Estes Park and loved it. How about that?" "Actual tents? You don't seem to suggest that sort of thing." "Log cabin, cook in the open, all day in the saddle. Come on, let's go!" "I'm nearly through with all I can do now. How long will it take you to get ready?" "Me? Oh, a day." "A day? Really?" "I'll take a steamer trunk——" "And a maid?" "No." "You'll go off gypsying with me alone, Barbara?" "Yes." [Pg 63] [Pg 64] [Pg 65] [Pg 66] [Pg 67] "Give me directions. I'll get tickets to-morrow." So it was decided. Barbara plunged into dismantling her rooms and packing her things. She dispatched the maid and many trunks to the country. The next night, when Paul came in, she stood in the midst of the denuded rooms. "You actually did it. You Irish do put things through!" he exclaimed. "We do. Get the tickets?" "I did, and wired the ranchman. We go on the Century to Chicago." "Good!" "You're not afraid of this new experiment?" "Which one?" "Going off alone into the wilderness with me. We will be dependent on each other. No little 'convenances' in the woods, you know." "I'm not afraid. I'd go alone with my maid, and you would be some protection." He laughed, but not too readily. They set out next day, both too tired for any sense of adventure. Bob had the drawing-room, and Paul wandered in and out, interrupting her reading. The trip west, beyond Chicago, was uneventful and hot. It was only when they arrived at Loveland, where they took the motor into the Park, that their interest began to awaken. The ride into Estes along the narrow roads, winding between high cliffs on one side, the roaring, foaming, booming Big Thompson River on the other—higher and higher and wilder as it winds—whipped Bob's spirits into a froth of talk and laughter. Paul was conscious of a sense of peril in her nearness, in her charm. He warned himself of the great disadvantage of being the one of them who cared. "We start even," he had said on that eventful day. "I wonder how we'll end?" he mused, looking into her vivid face. "Odds on the Irish," she laughed, reading his thoughts. Whereupon he blushed guiltily. III They came into the valley itself, beyond the town of Estes, at sunset, and Bob gasped with the glory of it. A long strip of fertile green land, with the river winding across it many times, like a satin ribbon. The massive mountains of the Great Divide, snow-capped, pink-tipped, in the setting sun, stood guard over the valley like watchmen. As Paul watched Barbara's face he thought it was like a prayer of exultation. They drew up to the long, low brown ranch house and were welcomed by the proprietor. "Mighty glad to meet ye and have ye with us. Ye didn't say what size cabin ye wanted, but I took ye for a bride an' groom, and gave ye what the boys call the 'Bridal soot.'" Trent laughed and assured him they were easily "suited," so the man led them down the valley, beyond all the outhouses, tents, cabins, and shacks to a log cabin cut off from the rest by a strip of woods. "Nobody to interfere with ye here—lonesome as the top of Mill's Mountain," remarked their host at parting. Bob led the way about and Paul followed her. There were two rooms: one with a fireplace, intended for a sitting-room; it had a couch bed, however, and the minimum of furniture. The bedroom beyond was equally bare. A sort of shed, used by some former tenant as a kitchenette, was shut off by a low door. But out of the broad windows and the open doors was a glory that made man-made comforts seem unessential details. They made the circuit of their new domain, and laughed. "Are you frightened?" he asked her. "Not of this shack, nor the big mountains, nor you. It's fun." "I can get along, of course, but you don't seem to fit." "Wait till I get on my mountain clothes, then I'll fit. These Fifth Avenue things look so ridiculous. But you're not to fret about me, Paul. I've had plenty of roughing it. I have faced life without a bathroom before. If I'm not a good enough Roman to stand it, I'll go back east." "Let's go engage a guide and see what horses they have for us." They started for the corral back of the ranch house, where the ponies were grazing. They had to step off the road several times to let parties of laughing men and girls gallop past. A cowboy volunteered to bring in some ponies, and while they waited, a big, loose-jointed man sauntered over to them. [Pg 68] [Pg 69] [Pg 70] [Pg 71] [Pg 72] [Pg 73]